The Family Gathering by Robyn Carr

Author:Robyn Carr
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIRA Books
Published: 2018-02-15T18:04:28+00:00

That best portion of a good man’s life,

his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.

—WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

11

SEDONA HAD NOT gone home at all, as she requested Dakota and Sierra be told. Instead, she had agreed to an inpatient mental health facility. That took some doing—at first she had resisted the very idea. Checking into a hospital, even if it was as plush as any resort, had not been part of her plan. Her plan had been to continue to cope by controlling her environment and keeping secret her greatest fear—that she would soon be as out of reality as her father had been since before she was born.

She had gone with Maggie to Denver, stayed with Maggie in her house and kept a few appointments with a psychiatrist by the name of Nan Tayama, a gentle woman of Burmese decent. “I’ve known Nan for years,” Maggie said. “She is the smartest woman in the world, I think. And probably the kindest. But if you don’t connect with her, I know others we can try.”

“How is it you know so many psychiatrists?” Sedona asked.

“We like the same part of the body. The brain. I like the physiology, they like the chemistry.”

“It’s going to take a lot more than chemistry,” Sedona said.

“You don’t know anything yet,” Maggie said. “First you have to be honest about what’s happening with you.”

Sedona tried her hardest. She gave Nan the benefit of the doubt. Nan was a tiny woman dressed in a suit that made Sedona wonder where she found professional-looking clothes made in such a small size. She assumed Nan was as smart and intuitive as Maggie said, and tried to open up. She explained that she’d started having manic episodes. Her heart would pound violently and she suffered from insomnia. Then the voices began. Usually it was her mother’s voice, telling her what to do. She’d already had two children, and believed she was out of the woods for schizophrenia since she was in her late twenties. She used the excuse of needing to be available for her kids and asked about working from home. Her employers accommodated her. Now, looking back, she wondered if they knew something was wrong with her and preferred to keep her out of the office. She was running analyses of psychological testing. It really wasn’t necessary that she be available for meetings or presentations as long as she supplied regular reports. And she did—long, meticulous reports. Being alone was better for her; she muttered to herself constantly, unless Bob or the kids were around, then by sheer dint of will she shut her mouth.

She went to see a psychiatrist with a good reputation and he immediately prescribed therapy and medication, but when she couldn’t wake up for the children, she stopped taking it and never went back. She was smart enough to know that meds without therapy or therapy without meds just wouldn’t do it. So, to cover what she knew was wrong, she made herself

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